“ I never apprenticed? I was apprenticed when I was seven year old.”

“Oh! Indeed?” said Mr. Gradgrind, rather resentfully, as having been defrauded of his good opinion. “I was not aware of its being the custom to apprentice young persons to⁠—”

“Idleness,” Mr. Bounderby put in with a loud laugh. “No, by the Lord Harry! Nor I!”